


Solo

by Naomida



Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [15]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Gen, War of the Thorns | Burning of Teldrassil, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:33:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: The Hall of the Guardian was strangely peaceful compared to everything that was happening to the world. For a minute after she arrived, Lidya just stood there, looking at the rows of books, breathing in the smell of them, feeling like she was home but something important was missing – like her favorite armchair, or her bed.A lot of people had gone home. The war against the Legion was over, and everyone was eager to go back to a normal life, which was understandable. She didn’t fault anyone who had left, but as she stood all alone in a place that had been bursting with life just a few weeks before, she couldn’t help but feel hollow and lonely.
Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/655244
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	Solo

Lidya didn’t tell anyone when she left for Suramar. She just kissed Varian on the cheek before rolling out of bed, told him that she would be back in a few days, and teleported herself to Dalaran without saying more. From there, she had made sure not to see Draerin, before getting her gryphon and going to the shal’dorei city.

In the city, she hadn’t really told anyone why she was here, except for Occuleth who knew that she was looking for a way to break a spell, but not much else. She didn’t want to give details to anyone – didn’t want to give false hope to the person who needed it the most in this world – and in the worse case scenario, if her research in the city was unfruitful, she could just pretend that this had never happened and go back to her life.

She spent two weeks there, going through old parchments and books, most of them written in a language that she didn’t totally understand and half faded out from their old age.

Two whole weeks, of reading through old spells and counterspells, thinking of nothing but that, and it finally happened.

She found it.

Occuleth and Thalyssra double and triple checked it, and only once she was absolutely certain that it was it did Lidya go back to Dalaran, a smile on the lips and feeling absolutely and completely confidant that things were going to get better now for the first time in  _years_ .

Unfortunately for her, Draerin ran into her the second she appeared in the city and shattered her hopes with only one look.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, on the verge of hysteria – which she had never seen before and immediately made her panic too.

“What’s happening?” she asked, watching a group of draenei nearby burst into tears.

“You need to get to Darnassus, _now_ ,” simply said Draerin, and she didn’t wait for more, immediately starting to cast a teleportation spell.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Screams and smoke assaulted her the second she arrived. For a moment, she thought that she was hallucinating, because surely, there was no way that this was actually happening, that Darnassus was filled with smoke and screaming civilians severely burned.

“Thank the Light you’re here!” exclaimed Mia Greymane, and Lidya simply blinked at her, thoughts running around her mind wildly, too shocked to really do or say anything. “We need help evacuating as many civilians as we can,” she continued, ushering some through the portal next to her, “please.”

Lidya blinked again, a heavy weight in her throat as her mind slowly started emptying, the cold hard truth hitting her, and she started running.

Only the Horde could have done that. No one else had the literal fire power.

She stopped as many fire as she could, teleporting civilians to Mia, running around knowing that there was no way she could save everyone – no way anyone could. It still didn’t stop her from trying, even when her eyes were too watery to see, even when the smoke got too thick, even when her lungs started closing up, receiving more smoke than air.

She fell down on her knees in the middle of a burning house, hearing the calls of what sounded like a teenager, and she just managed to raise her hand and throw up a blizzard to kill the fires, before she was passing out.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Lidya woke up in Genn’s arms.

He was walking through the smoke, and only spared her one quick look before he was gently putting her down on the floor and sprinting back out.

The archmage blinked, and looked around, surprised to find herself back into the Temple, next to Mia Greymane and the portal to Stomrwind. The queen was squating down next to her, offering a small sad smile, and gently grabbed her arm.

“Come, child,” she said, helping Lidya up, “it’s time to go.”

She tried to protest, but couldn’t form words through the smoke in her throat, and barely realized what was happening as she was pulled to her feet, and dragged through the portal.

Lidya violently swayed as soon as she had crossed the portal, tilting to the left, Mia not strong enough to hold her up, and she fell down on all four, immediately starting to cough.

And cough.

And cough again.

It felt like her lungs were sizing up, closing down, like air would never get in again, like she’d have to live in this world of smoke and ashes for ever, and she closed her eyes against the wave of tears that came and had nothing to do with her violent coughing.

“We need a healer!” yelled Genn, voice resonating strangely inside the mage tower, and normally Lidya would have wondered how he had gotten here so fast whens she had just seen him leave, how he had even known to go to Darnassus, but she was still too busy trying to breathe.

“You’ll be okay, child,” softly murmured Mia to her right, kneeling on the floor next to her and gently rubbing a hand between her shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry...” replied Lidya between harsh pants, looking up at her, tears be damned. “I couldn’t...” she struggled to get the next words out, “couldn’t save everyone – I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, we already owe you a lot,” she said, trying for a sympathetic smile that mostly looked pained.

And then a hysterical Archdruid fell out of the portal too, right next to Lidya, and she didn’t hesitate before getting up on her knees, still coughing like she was going to die at any second, and take Cary in her arms, closing her eyes when the elf started sobbing against her shoulder and gripped her back.

She had survived this attack, but somehow, it felt like something in her had died in Darnassus.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The war council room of Stormwind was silent, for once, and Lidya was weary as she slowly sat down at a chair around the table and looked around at all the hard faces looking back at her.

Several questions were burning her lips, like what the fuck had happened those past two weeks that had lead to such an event to be possible to happen, why had no one thought to send for her earlier, and most importantly, why wasn’t Varian in the room?

His absence left an emptiness that everyone could probably feel – and not just her. Anduin was quietly speaking with Genn, on the edge of the room, their voices too quiet for her to understand what they were saying, but she kept staring at them while they spoke.

She had no idea what was happening – what had just happened. Cary had tried to explain to her through the sobs while a healer was taking care of the two of them, but it had been hard to understand the Archdruid who was hysterical and screaming and couldn’t even breathe through her tears.

Lidya knew that she would never understand how terrible all of this must have been for a druid, especially a kaldorei one, but considering the weight in her chest and the nausea she was feeling, she could begin to imagine.

Losing Darnassus to a fire had been unthinkable – yet here they were.

She snapped out of her thoughts when Mathias Shaw walked into the room and joined Anduin and Genn. The two kings immediately turned to him and listened intently as the spy reported to them, and Lidya bit down on her lower lip hard enough that it hurt. Something terrible was going on – something that might be even more terrible than all of Darnassus burning, if it was even possible – and she didn’t know what to do about it. No one had talked to her, in fact no one had even told her to come here, she just had walked into the room and ignored the strange looks it had gotten her, and after everything that had happened those past few years, how close she had gotten to all the leaders of this world, how she had literally helped save Azeroth only a few weeks before, she couldn’t quite understand why they were now acting like she was a stranger, like she didn’t have her place in this room.

“Archmage,” whispered someone to her right, and she finally looked away from Mathias and the kings to come face to face with three guards and two men from the SI:7.

“Yes?” she replied, already knowing in her heart what was happening.

“Could you follow us, please? We would like to speak with you privately.”

She sent a quick look at Mathias, who was ignoring her – but Genn wasn’t. The Gilnean King met her eyes, looking even more somber than usual, and tired, and still covered in ashes, just like she was. He had probably saved her life that day, just like she had saved his in the past. He was her friend, despite their differences, and she trusted him.

She just hoped the reciprocity was true.

“Of course,” she told the guard, getting up and following him out of the room, pretending like she couldn’t feel every single eye in the room on her back.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The interrogation lasted several hours. Mathias never really came in, but she knew he had to be somewhere watching and listening in. They asked her where she had been those past few weeks, why no one had seen her, never saying it but making it clear that they knew she had been in Suramar.

It had been a calculated risk on her part. The shal’dorei had joined the Horde not long after everyone had come back from Argus, and it hadn’t been such a huge surprise for her. They had a lot in common with the sin’dorei, it seemed logical that they would join forces with them and their allies, and it didn’t mean that they had forgotten all that she had done for them. In fact, Thalyssra had told her at length that she regretted that they were now on opposite sides – even someone who had been an outsider up until very recently could see that a war was coming.

Lidya had spent some time between the hands of the Legion and their own interrogators though, and she had held her tongue then, so she managed to hold her tongue now too, even if it was hard when they started bringing in sensible subjects – like her friends and Varian.

“We all know you like to make strange friendships with some questionable individuals, like the infamous Illidari General,” said one of the SI:7 men.

Lidya gritted her teeth at that.

It had already been what? Six weeks without Ilana in her life? She had survived many years before meeting her, and she was determined to survive for a long time without her in her life again.

The demon hunters had left pretty quickly after cleaning up the rest of the demons still hanging about the Broken Isles. They had gone back to Mardum and had closed the portal without saying much to anyone – except for Lidya.

Loramus, Kayn, Varedis, Jace and even Asha had personally come to bid her goodbye.

Ilana and her had spent an entire night just sitting close together on a beach near Delivrance Point, not saying much – but the few words they had shared that night were impactful and would stay with her for a long time, just like she knew it would stay with Ilana too.

Ilana, who had been her best friend for all those months, her rock, her lighthouse, the reason she had continued to fight for so long, even when it was hopeless and she wanted to quit.

It felt like Lidya had lost another sister, but it felt wrong to feel that, she was ashamed of herself for even thinking it, and she tried to never ponder over it. She had managed it well up until now, mostly because Varian had been by her side, trying to help her adjusting to not being in the middle of a terrible war anymore, and her search for the right spell in Suramar had also busied her mind enough that she hadn’t thought too much of any Illidari, but it was weird that it was now brought up.

Especially since there was still no sign of Varian – or they hadn’t told him that she was here, because she was certain that he would never let anyone take her to a tiny room to be interrogated like a culprit for hours and hours.

“I had to work with the Illidari during the war against the Legion whether you like it or not,” she replied after a moment of consideration. “What does this have to do with what happened today?”

“The Illidari General is only the first name in a long list of questionable alliances you have made through the years.”

Lidya pursed her lips and crossed her arms, waiting.

“We all know that you have been awfully close to the Highmountain Taurens and the Shaldorei, who recently joined the Horde.”

“Again, we all fought the Legion together.”

“And then of course there are all the Archmages, who leave no doubt as to where their loyalties lie,” continued the spy who had been talking since the beginning, looking smug. He had something, she knew, and she prepared herself mentally for the blow, hoping that she would not let anything show on her face.

“You’re going to have to be more precise. I live in Dalaran and am an Archmage myself.”

“I’m talking about Archmage Aethas Sunreaver, and of course your dear friend Archmage Draerin Sunheart.”

Lidya’s heartbeat picked up at Draerin’s name, because she knew that whenever he was brought up in this kind of context things tended to blow up in her face. The last time, she had been thrown out of Dalaran after barely managing to save him from being executed – it had taken a lot of thinking on her part, while she had sobbed her eyes out during interrogation, to talk themselves out of the terrible situation Draerin had put them in.

“Again,” she said, her voice thankfully not wobbling, “I’m an Archmage, and I lead the Tirisgarde, which is based in Dalaran. I don’t see your point.”

“My point is that you have been friends with enemies of the Alliance for a while, making no secret of it, and it might have been accepted, once upon a time, but things have changed now.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” she said, forcing her face not to move – she wanted to frown, because there was something behind this sentence. Something had changed in her two weeks absence, she didn’t know what, but something big enough for her to now be interrogated like a criminal.

“What I mean is that we know you were in Suramar, which is now enemy territory, for two weeks, and you only left it when Darnassus was attacked.”

“I had no idea about Darnassus, I had no contact with the outside world, and what I was doing in Suramar, while being none of your concern, was Archmage and Tirisgarde business.”

“Right,” scoffed the other spy, who was leaning back against the wall facing her, his arms crossed and his eyes never leaving her.

“What kind of business?” asked the other spy, leaning closer to her on his chair.

Lidya blinked and almost answered the question.

_Almost._

She didn’t know what was happening, but she was certain of one thing: she couldn’t trust those spies, or anyone in this city that she didn’t previously knew, probably. Telling them now could be very dangerous – people could get greedy over all the secrets hidden in Suramar and just waiting to be discovered. She had seen some pretty disturbing spells, while she was looking for the one she was interested in, and considering what she had seen in Darnassus earlier, some things were better off being forgotten.

“Tirisgarde business.”

“Again,” said the second spy from his wall, his smug smile growing larger, “ _what kind of business_?”

Lidya blinked again, forcing her face not to move. She didn’t want to give anything away, but she had never thought that she’d had to think of a plausible lie for this.

“We have an issue,” she said, slowly, “with our elementals. Being so close to the Tomb of Sargeras and the Nightwell makes them… well, they explode sometimes, which is a huge problem that we finally have time to address. I went to Suramar because the shal’dorei, as you might know, are excellent mages and are the best placed to know more about the energy going through the Nightwell.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. Some elementals had exploded, once or twice. It had, of course, been the fault of the caster, not of the Nightwell or anything else like it, but they didn’t need to know that.

The spies exchanged a look.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on now?” she asked when they didn’t say anything and just kept looking at her.

“That’s Shaw’s job, not ours,” replied the first spy, before turning back to his colleague.

“Alright,” he sighed, “let’s start back from the beginning.”

Lidya sighed internally, and planted her nails into her arms, forcing herself not to show how annoyed she was.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Ilana had taught her, after she had been saved from the Legion, how to tell how long had passed when she didn’t have access to the sky, which was why she knew that it had been exactly twenty six hours in that little room, and three different pairs of spies when the walls shook, a huge explosion resonated, and everyone left the room running, leaving her there with the door open.

Lidya didn’t wait for anyone to come back and remember about her. She got up, and teleported herself away to the only place she knew no one would think to look for her.

Karazhan was like she had always known it to be: big, dark, cold and empty. It was also finally void of any strange enemies, and she hoped it would stay that way for a long time, tired of always having to come back here to clean up other people’s mess.

Fortunately, all those visits meant that she knew the place pretty well, and she found Khadgar in the library without any difficulties, hunched over a book, his brows furrowed and his usual armor missing, leaving him looking strangely vulnerable in a simple dark blue shirt and black pants.

“Something bad’s happening,” she announced as she walked into the room, and he looked up at her with red eyes, dark circles under them and a haunted look on his face.

“I know,” he said, voice throatier than usual. “The Alliance and the Horde are at war and Darnassus was destroyed.”

“And I’m pretty sure Stormwind is being attacked as we speak,” she replied, walking to him and leaning a hip against the table where his book was, looking down at his familiar face, still not quite believing that she got to be friends with him – still not quite believing that they had gone through so much together.

He looked down for a moment, at his hands, then at his book again.

“You’re the Guardian,” said Lidya when it was clear that he wouldn’t speak. “It is your responsibility to help this world.”

“I don’t want this responsibility.”

“I know, but you have it, and you have no choice. Draerin told me something like that once,” she said, watching the small smile appear on his face when he heard the elf’s name. “You might not want it, but you have it and people are counting on you.”

“I told them that I would take no part in a war between the Alliance and the Horde.”

“I know,” replied Lidya, putting her hand on his shoulder and squeezing it comfortingly, “I said the same thing, but I’m pretty sure something very bad happened to Varian.”

He looked up at her, looking surprised, and Lidya swallowed through the lump in her throat. She’d had time in the past twenty six hours to turn the question around in her mind, and there was no other explanation for how she had been treated. People had seen them kiss when she had come back from Argus, there was no question about it, and there was no way things would go sour so quickly if Varian had any say in any of it.

“What happened?” asked Khadgar, reaching up to touch her hand.

She told him everything, finishing with what she was doing in Suramar, slowly taking the little piece of parchment hidden in her belt and putting in down on his book.

Khadgar stayed silent for a very long time, looking up into her eyes, something fragile on his face that made him look his real age.

“Are you serious?” he murmured.

“I would never lie about it,” she replied. “I found a counterspell to undo what he did to you. You can look like yourself again.”

Khadgar blinked at the sudden tears in his eyes as he looked down at the parchment.

“I can help you with the spell, of course, I’ll do whatever you need me to, if you ever choose to use it. I thought you deserved a real thank you, for everything that you did for me and everyone. I...” she swallowed with difficulty, the fatigue of the past few days and emotions that she had pushed down all coming back up, “I wouldn’t have survived Draenor if it wasn’t for you.”

For a while, they didn’t speak nor move.

“I need you now, though. Azeroth needs you.”

“I can’t,” he replied, getting up from the chair and walking away, leaving the parchment and the book, “I’m very sorry Lidya.”

Lidya gritted her teeth and pretended she couldn’t feel the tears burning in her eyes.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The Hall of the Guardian was strangely peaceful compared to everything that was happening to the world. For a minute after she arrived, Lidya just stood there, looking at the rows of books, breathing in the smell of them, feeling like she was home but something important was missing – like her favorite armchair, or her bed.

A lot of people had gone home. The war against the Legion was over, and everyone was eager to go back to a normal life, which was understandable. She didn’t fault anyone who had left, but as she stood all alone in a place that had been bursting with life just a few weeks before, she couldn’t help but feel hollow and lonely.

Meryl was probably somewhere, grumbling about the mess that was left, but she didn’t feel like talking to him and went directly to her office, activating the orb and smiling softly as she remembered the time she had done this with Varian.

He had given her a token of love, that time.

She was married to him now, but had no idea where he could be.

She wasn’t sure she could go back to Stormwind, not after the interrogation and her quick departure, and no one was stupid, they would look for her here in Dalaran as soon as the dust settled a little, which didn’t leave her with a lot of options. She should be safe in the Hall of the Guardian, and she was pretty sure the Kirin Tor wouldn’t let the Alliance’s guards do anything to her – just like she hoped Anduin and Genn wouldn’t either – but she couldn’t spend the rest of her days here, not when the world was falling apart and she had a king to find.

She could go to Draerin’s house, but it was in the middle of Horde territory and she wasn’t sure it would be really safe nor clever.

Her farm was an option, but a bad one. She needed to stay close to the action, and she needed to know what was happening.

She sat down at her desk, and started thinking.

She knew most of the powerful people of this world personally, and actually called some of them friends, and there was no doubt in her mind that she would need friends to do this – and no matter how much she thought about it, she always came back to one name.

The last time she had seen Jaina was before she had jumped off a ship to go save Variant though, and there had been no news of her since then – and it wasn’t like Lidya could go ask Mathias for some intel.

There were a few possible places where she could be hiding, but it would take took long for Lidya to go check them all out, especially if the SI:7 was after her.

Maybe Khalecgos could–

There was a surge of magic before she could finish that thought and she jumped to her feet, chair falling on the ground behind her, and raised her ice barrier, ready to attack.

The small earth elemental that had just appeared in her office simply blinked at her, and announced that Magni was waiting for her in Silithus.

“Magni?” she asked, adrenaline still rushing through her veins, making it hard to focus once it was paired with the absolute surprise she was feeling. “What?”

“It is urgent,” replied the elemental in that unnatural voice its kind usually had, before disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

Lidya slowly breathed out, not sure that it hadn’t been her imagination playing games with her – why would Magni want to talk to her? Now of all times?

Varian trusted him, and Lidya knew the dwarf well enough, but she had also trusted the Alliance not to treat her like a prisoner, and there she was.

She turned on her heels, put her chair up and back in its place, and heavily sat into it, feeling tired and nauseous all of the sudden. She needed to sleep and eat something, and it was all too much happening at the same time. She was confused. She was scared. She couldn’t stop thinking about Varian.

“ _Don’t be long,_ ” he had grumbled into his pillow, face hidden by the linen and his hair, right before she had left.

He had been naked under the sheets – she knew because she had been the one to take his clothes off the night before – and for a second, just seeing him laying like this in the middle of  _their_ bed she had almost went back to bed, just to kiss him and hold him for a while, and hopefully maybe do a little more than that.

Instead, she had been the respectable Archmage and had simply agreed before tying her shoes and teleporting away.

It had been two weeks and a half, now. If something had happened to him, surely someone would have told her, right?

She wasn’t so sure anymore, and the doubt was starting to eat away at her. Either he had disappeared during the attack, in which case she needed to get working on his disappearance as soon as possible, or he had disappeared before and no one had told her even though it was clear the Alliance had known that she was in Suramar and could have easily found a way to contact her.

What the fuck was happening?

Two weeks away, and this is what she was coming to. She was angry, at herself, and at the world at large. She should have been in Stormwind with the High King, she should have been in Darnassus with everyone when it had all started, she should have stayed in the War Council room and demanded to know what was going on.

Instead she was all alone in her office, lost and scared.

She had no plan of action and was too agitated and exhausted to come up with one – even a shitty one was too much for her right now – but that elemental had given her a task, and the timing was, to say the least, interesting.

If it was a set-up, then maybe facing the Alliance would give her some answer, and if it was not a set up, then clearly something was wrong and he needed her help.

With a long sigh, the Archmage decided, once again, to do what she had to do and not what she wanted to do, and she got up again to cast the teleportation spell.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


There was a strange pulse in the air. It was both electric and magic, and Lidya could feel every hair on her body stand. She had a strange feeling about it — neither good nor bad for now, but she knew by now that it could change easily.

She turned to Magni, who hadn’t spoken yet.

“I’m not fighting this war,” she said. She didn’t know how well he kept in touch with everything happening on Azeroth between Horde and Alliance, but Lidya had reached her limit. Seeing everything she had worked so hard to protect implode was already hard enough, but having the people she trusted turn their back to her?

She couldn’t do this anymore, they could all just figure it out by themselves for once.

And that was without even thinking about the whole Varian situation.

She knew he wasn’t dead or dying — the Light would make her feel it otherwise — but that only helped so much.

“I didn’t call you here for that. I think the same as you about this war. We have way more important matters. Azeroth is dying, and they are all fighting over her life essence. This can’t go on.”

Lidya nodded, already knowing that she was about to shoulder a burden way too big and heavy for her — once again, because apparently she never learned.

It wasn’t like she had a choice though. He had summoned her in some sort of Titan chamber, right next to Sargeras’ sword, and the fact that she had only met some Earthen Ring shamans and a few druids on her way there meant a lot. No one cared about this anymore, now that the war had really started, and she felt like it was her duty, as someone with sense and some kind of power, to do the best she could with what she had and at least  _try_ to save their dying world.

“What do you need from me?” she asked, and it seemed like the right answer, because he smiled, and finally started talking.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


There were a few choices that Lidya had made and she refused to regret. One of those was giving Felo’melorn back to its people. She had taken advantage of her first visit to Draerin after they had come back from Argus to meet with the sin’dorei’s big three and present them the blade.

“Your people lost a lot. I thought you could get something back for once.”

Even Rommath had seemed pleasantly surprised, which had comforted her in her idea that it was a good idea.

She had thought back on it exactly once before and it was four weeks after coming back from Argus as she was holding up Ebonhold to use its power, along with the power of all the other powerful weapons of this world to try and save the world. Ilana had already left at that point, and so Lidya had stood next to the paladins, trying not to look too broken hearted at the fact that she could feel her staff slowly die out in her hands.

Magni had told everyone that this could happen beforehand, but it wasn’t like any of them was in a position to refuse.

And so the heroes of Azeroth had managed to keep the planet from exploding for a little while longer, but all of them had lost their most powerful artifact.

Now that she was squating down near a small pile of bodies, shivering in her dripping armor and feeling every single waterdrop roll on her skin, hands in tight fists but desperately empty, she couldn’t help but regret her choice of giving Felo’melor’ away.

She had gone back to being a frost mage for months now, but she could feel the fire returning to her for the first time since the death of her sister.

“Is that..?” asked the soldier in front of her, eyes wide open, and Lidya wondered if lunging at him would be better than sending a frostbolt — she couldn’t bring herself to seriously harm Alliance soldiers yet, but she knew each day took that option farther from her.

He raised his sword, but the Highlord standing next to him stopped him by grabbing his wrist and pushing it down.

“What are you doing?” he hissed between clenched teeth, not looking away from Lidya.

“We have to bring her back to Greymane. You know our orders.”

“Show some respect you fool,” replied the Highlord, letting go of him to hold his hand out for Lidya instead.

She grabbed it and accepted his help to get up on her feet.

Highlord Darren was by far one of the most approachable human Lidya had ever met. He was one of the most powerful paladin to walk Azeroth, didn’t seem to care about factions or affiliation — the Light was all he knew, and he was willing to heal anyone in need. The two-handed mace on his back had changed too, and Lidya gritted her teeth at the stab in her stomach.

Everyone had sacrificed something to put an end to what had happened on Argus, she just hadn’t realized how big of a sacrifice it had been until now.

“What are you doing?” asked Darren.

“You heard him,” she replied, pointing to the soldier with her chin, “there’s a price on my head. Big roads aren’t available for me right now.”

He pursed his lips.

“I mean _here_ , in Tiragarde. Do you have any idea what’s going down here? You need to go back to wherever you’ve been hiding.”

“I can’t, I have something important to do,” she replied, wishing terribly that it wasn’t true and she could just follow his advice.

The Heart of Azeroth felt heavy where it fell on her chest, hidden from prying eyes under her armor, and it emitted magic at all times, making it impossible for Lidya to forget that it was here.

Magni had told her that it was, for now, their only way to save Azeroth, and she knew he wouldn’t lie about it or use that kind of wording if it wasn’t the absolute truth, which didn’t really leave her with a lot of options.

There were huge azerite fractures all over this continent, fractures that she could only close with The Heart, which didn’t leave her a choice. She followed Azerite wherever she found it, and so did the war. It was a miracle no one had caught her up until now.

The situation was getting worse, she could tell, but she neither wanted nor could get involved.

For once, it was out of her hands and she had more important things to do.

The Highlord healed her as soon as she was standing next to him, his Light feeling oddly familiar, and Lidya let herself relax into it, just for a moment, knowing it wasn’t every day that she could get in touch with a healer.

Just with a touch her twisted ankle was okay again, her cuts were healed and her stamina was back.

She hadn’t felt that good in a  _long_ time.

“There was a skirmish,” said Darren after blessing her — and she could have hugged him right there and then just for that. “The fighting finally stopped after two days, but it could start again at any moment. I suggest you do your business at the fracture fast. »

Lidya frowned, because she hadn’t told anyone outside of Vargoth and Ravandwyr what she was up to — and only because the high elf had tracked her down and forced her to.

He had almost teared her little tent apart when he had finally found her in Un’Goro, trying to sleep in between two teleportation spells, about eight weeks after the burning of Teldrassil. She had seen no one except Magni and Draerin since leaving Karazhan.

Draerin, who had had nothing good to say to her. He had mostly screamed and threatened her, because she had gone to him straight from the battle of Lordaeron — it hadn’t been hard to see the Alliance army move North and guess where they were going. The fighting was still going on, at Arathi and in the mountains of what used to be Alterac, and she still couldn’t believe they had fallen into that trap — couldn’t believe that Sylvanas would go that far, that no one had stopped her before, that all of it was happening.

“I don’t give a shit about any of this!” had yelled Ravandwyr, dragging her out of her tent and onto the lush grass of the warm afternoon. “You _vanished_ for two months, just like your King, and there’s a full blown war going on. What the fel!”

Lidya hadn’t had anything to say to that, So she had simply forced him to sit down, and had told him everything that she knew and that had happened to her.

He hadn’t known more than her — had simply told her that a lot of people had suddenly reappeared in Dalaran, or on the contrary had flown away — most of the druids had gone to Valsharrah without saying a word. Some Tirisgarde members had asked around for her, and Khadgar had dropped something off in her office.

It had surprised her. She hadn’t thought that people would turn to her in this catastrophic time, and it had made her proud of herself — it meant she was a worthy leader, which had been one of her goals during the campaign against the Legion, and in turn she had told Ravandwyr about the Heart of Azeroth.

The elf had made her promise on a next meeting, in a designated place, and that she would keep him in the loop about any new information, so that he could help her with researches or by going out into the world too, get to know more about Azerite and work as her eyes and ears, and she had been forced to accept, mature enough to recognize that she couldn’t do it all alone.

It had been a relief to have someone on her side, finally, and now that it seemed like more people were, without her knowledge, it made her wonder.

“We all got briefed by Magni, at least those of us who showed up,” said Darren when Lidya didn’t reply anything. He shrugged a shoulder and gave a nasty look to the soldier next to him, who took it as his clue to turn around and get away from them, pretending to admire some plants a few meters away. “You’re not alone in this. We’re all collecting as much Azerite as we can get away with to give it back to him.”

She nodded, feeling a weight she hadn’t even known was there lift from her shoulders.

“What else can you tell me?”

“Jaina has disappeared,” he said, and Lidya felt a lump appear in her stomach. She had been too late to reach her, the Alliance had beat her to it, and she could only watch from afar as Jaina immediately got involved in the war.

It was a little disappointing, to think that Genn and Anduin would do this, knowing her feelings and her history with the Horde, but she was a very powerful ally and wouldn’t hesitate, once faced against the Horde.

The fact that she would disappear though… that was strange and couldn’t be good news.

"Who joined this war?” asked Lidya, and Darren immediately understood.

“The Archdruid is mostly leading the effort here," he said, which didn’t exactly surprise Lidya. She knew a little bit about Cary, who despite her feelings about it had a lot in common with her sister. She wouldn’t forgive or forget what the Horde had done to Tel’drassil. It wasn’t good news. “The Battlelord and the three Netherlords did too. I think the High Priest might be too – he doesn’t have much of a choice, as an undead.”

“No one else for the Alliance?”

Darren looked away, frowning slightly with embarrassment.

“There’s me, obviously, and I’ve seen the Grandmaster hanging around. I think the Farseer might be on our side too” he was an orc, which surprised Lidya. “It’s all very messy. Each day pushes us to make a choice. In the end, everyone will have to choose a side and stick with it. Alleria is leading a group of former sin’dorei who turned to the void and paid a high price for it, and a lot of Lightforged Draenei arrived by boat last week.”

“And I’ve seen some mag’har orcs around,” she admitted, which had Darren pale.

“If the rumors about them joining the Horde are true, then the rumors about the darkiron must be true too.”

“The dwarves would accept it?”

Darren shrugged.

“We’re all making concessions in these dark times.”

He paused, shifted his footing for a moment, hesitating.

“What is it?”

“Other rumors must be true, about... well, about you, and a king.”

Lidya felt a sharp pain in the chest, like always when thinking about Varian.

“Do you know where he is?”

She shook her head, and forced herself to sound as normal as possible when she replied.

“Doesn’t Anduin know?”

It was Darren’s turn to shake his head. “He’s been sending spies all over Azeroth in the hope of finding him, but no one has heard from or seen the High King.”

“Do you know who was the last person to see him?”

“No idea,” replied Darren, “I was training with Turalyon in the Vindicaar until I was called when Darkshore was invaded. I think this was where he was last seen though. You should talk to Shandris.”

“Not sure that’s an option,” she replied, starting to feel wearier than usual.

She had looked around, had found ways to ask some people that might have known something, and so far, it seemed like Varian had literally vanished. One minute, he was going to Darkshore, the next he was never to be seen again.

It couldn’t have been the Horde – Sylvanas was known for taking prisoners and hiding them in dungeons so far away from everything, people completely forgot about them, but she doubted the Warchief wouldn’t have made a show of executing the High King, especially since she could have used him as bait or leverage.

Something else was at work, something powerful and discreet, something that didn’t leave traces, that hadn’t raised any alarm, and most importantly, something that had either managed to take Varian so discreetly that he hadn’t fought back or that Varian hadn’t judged dangerous enough to fight.

It could have been an ally. Someone had betrayed them and taken Varian out of the equation.

The only other option she refused to think about – she knew him. He would never abandon his people, especially in such dire times.

He would never.

“I should get going,” she announced, and Darren nodded, looking over his shoulder at the soldier still pretending like he wasn’t trying to overhear them.

“Listen, you have to be very careful. Nothing and no one is safe. Tyrande took a boat and disappeared somewhere off the coast of Darkshore. Jaina hasn’t been seen since she was thrown to prison by her mother. Everyone here has Azerite weapons, most of them don’t even know where they come from, and there’s something very fishy going on North of Tiragarde, in the valley.”

“Fishy?”

“I haven’t had time yet to go take a look, but some of Alleria’s people warned me not to linger too much there.”

“Great,” sighed Lidya, knowing herself – she couldn’t just leave it, she’d have to go take a look, just to make sure. There were too many strange things happening on this little island, and there was no way this was normal.

Something big was at work her – bigger even than the Horde Alliance war over Azerite.

“Anything else I should be aware of?”

“Yeah, you look like shit. The Alliance army has looked for you just about everywhere, but I can keep Shaw busy for a day or two, so you can maybe find a real bed to sleep in.”

It sounded perfect, but she wouldn’t admit to sleeping in the tent directly on the ground most nights to him.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said, managing a smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he replied, giving back a beaming smile that actually made her feel slightly better, before clasping her shoulder. “We’re all fighting for the same thing, in the end. Those idiots just don’t realize it. Find me if you need a healer, or anything else.”

Lidya nodded.

“I will.”

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


She took Darren’s advice to go sleep in a real bed, but only because she needed some calm to think about everything. She had mostly been living at the Keep in Stormwind before all of this, of course, and there was no way she was going to her chambers in the Violet Citadel where Mathias Shaw’s spies were probably waiting for her, but there was a big number of protections around the Chamber of the Guardian, protections that she kept at their minimum as to never let people know that they were here, but would fire up when the need arose.

That night, she kept the protections tight as she teleported in her office and collapsed on the big plush chair behind her desk.

She hadn’t come back here since... well, since coming back from Teldrassil and all that had followed, and it felt strangely touching to see everything still where she had left it.

Except for the big leather book laying on the very middle of her desk that she hadn’t put there.

Ravandwyr had said that Khadgar had dropped something off, and as she opened the heavy front page of the book and looked down at the curved writing on the first page, she swallowed the little lump of feelings that had suddenly appeared in her throat. She hadn’t been expecting that kind of present.

Why would he give her the Guardian’s spell book, unless to pass a very clear message?

She turned the first page, reading through the spell, feeling something stir in her chest — excitement, which she hadn’t felt since she had found the spell to deage him, back when she didn’t know her entire world had burned down and transformed into her worst nightmare.

Another page, another spell. This couldn’t be all, she knew that very well. One needed more than the spells to be a Guardian — one needed the raw power.

What was Khadgar doing then?

She got her answer as she turned to the next page and found a raven feather, along with a small parchment.

A note, in Khadgar’s scrawny writing. It was brief, but clear.

_I’m ready and I’ll be waiting for you in Zangarra. You’re right, Azeroth deserves a Guardian that can help it._

For a beat, she just stared down at the words, frozen, numb, her heartbeat a buzzing at the back of her head.

She didn’t want the title, but she already had the responsibilities.

_This world doesn’t deserve you,_ had told her Ilana a few moments before leaving Azeroth behind.  _Promise me you’ll stop letting people boss you around._

She had promised.

She also knew that if Ilana had been here she would have immediately begun to track down Khadgar to potentially eye beam him.

Light, Lidya missed her terribly.

She also knew exactly what to do, now that this choice was given to her — knew that she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least try — so she got up, putting her plan to sleep in a warm room on pause for now, grabbed the heavy spell book and teleported herself to Khadgar.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very excited to start writing about BfA because it has been a very weird expansion for me so far. I've finally started playing like a try hard with mythic raiding and high rio score, but I also had to stop playing for several months because I moved to the other side of the continent. I also have no idea how I'm gonna work out some of the lore considering the changes I made for Legion in this story  
> I'd love to know what you're expecting (what do you think happened to Varian????) and every comment is highly appreciated < 3


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